3 ballet companies team with NAC

Choreographers from three Canadian ballet companies will join forces with homegrown composers for a new production debuting in Ottawa before heading across the country.

Encount3rs will feature the works of Jean Grand-Maître of Alberta Ballet, Emily Molnar of Ballet BC and Guillaume Côté of the National Ballet of Canada.

The three one-act ballets were commissioned by the National Arts Centre.

Grand-Maître teams with Junonominated Andrew Staniland in Caelestis. Molnar partners with Juno-nominated composer Nicole Lizée on Keep Driving, I’m Dreaming. And Côté reunites with Kevin Lau — his past collaborator on the National Ballet’s Le Petit Prince — on the new work Dark Angels.

Encount3rs will have its world premiere in Ottawa April 20 to 22, then will be restaged by Ballet BC from May 11 to 13; the National Ballet from June16 to 22, 2018, and Alberta Ballet in the winter of 2018-19.